Freedom in the Darkness
by Tali Rancourt
Summary: A Drow woman stands alone in the place where Zaknafein met his final end. But why is she there...?


Tali took a deep breath, released it in a sigh, and let her vision drop to her people's native darkvision as she surveyed the cavern before her. A wide, serene lake covered her entire range of vision, but for a path of rocks across its center and a high, rubble-strewn ledge along one edge. Both paths would be a risky enough walk above any of the Underdark's lakes. Here, they were virtually suicidal. The lake's seeming serenity masked its content - vile acid that could dissolve any flesh unfortunate enough to come in contact with it. And here she stood, looking out over it, unarmored and in a flimsy silk dress that left much of that flesh uncovered.  
  
Nonetheless, she took a step out onto the first stone leading out to the center of the acid lake. With catlike grace and unearthly balance, she slowly made her way out to grouping of larger stones near the center, where she sat down, crossed her legs, and closed her eyes. The fumes gnawed at the edges of her senses, making her feel nauseous, and she struggled to stifle the sickness as she calmed herself and extended her awareness. When she felt the faint hints of another presence within the cavern, deep below the surface of the acid lake, she smiled softly, and began to speak.  
  
She spoke aloud, though she realized that she didn't need to, and her voice echoed off the walls of the cavern, now far out of sight from her precarious rest. "I know you're here, Zaknafein Do'Urden. I can feel you watching me. I know why you're trapped here. I know what Malice and her kind did to you. I know how you sacrificed what was left of yourself, and I know why. I want to set you free. But I can't do it until you let me help you."  
  
The presence swirled upward from the lake. It swirled around her for a moment, an ice-cold mist of stinging acid, then a whisper, heavy with disgust, echoed into her thoughts. "Drow. Bitch. Get out. There's not enough left of me to use anymore."  
  
Tali didn't flinch away, even as the acid mist ate at her skin. A thin sheen of blood began to form on her bare arms. "I'm not here to use you. I'm not here to hurt you. I'm here to free you. Do to me what you will; I refuse to fight you, and I refuse to leave. You have two choices: trust me, or destroy me." Her voice grew ragged and pained as she inhaled the mist and it burned her throat. "If I were here to use you, or to try to destroy you, would I have come unprotected? Would I be sitting here now trying to convince you of the truth?"  
  
The presence whipped violently around her for a few seconds longer, then drew back and coalesced into a misty semblance of its once-familiar form. A tall male Drow in chainmail, with hair bound back in a warrior's braid, carrying a pair of adamantine longswords, stood on the surface of the lake and regarded the woman before him silently for several moments before he spoke, in a faraway whisper of a voice. "You're Drow. You're female. That means you want something. What is it?"  
  
She shook her head faintly and folded her hands in her lap, and inwardly winced a little as she felt the silk adhere to her oozing skin. "I want to set things right. Isn't that what you wanted, Zak? Isn't that why you threw yourself into this lake? To set things right, to give your son the chance you never had?"  
  
The specter startled and reached for one misty, incorporeal sword. "What do you know of my motives, woman, or for that matter, my son?" He advanced on Tali slowly, his face a mask of anger. "I did this so that he might get away from the likes of you!"  
  
Eyes still closed, unmoving, Tali sighed softly. "And what do you know of my kind, Zak? Would you judge me by appearance? Do you honestly think that he's our people's only outcast?"  
  
Zaknafein stopped and stared at the woman. "Are you saying that you, a female, are shebali? How? Females hold the city in their filthy hands. Why would they cast out one of their own?"  
  
Tali smiled a little and opened her eyes to regard the spectral elf sadly. "Do they ever cast anyone out, Zak? Just like him, they were going to kill me, to sacrifice me to that bitch queen Lolth. I escaped because a male, my brother, set me free. I couldn't save him, but I can save others in his name. I can save you." She lifted one hand, peeling the fabric of her dress away from the skin, and reached out to him. "But I can't do it unless you let me. Please let me help you."  
  
Zaknafein moved closer and eyed the hand that had been extended to him. "Tell me who you are first," he commanded. "Who are you, and why me? Give me a reason to believe what you say."  
  
Tali eased to her feet, gritting her teeth a little against the sting of moving injured skin. As she stood, she looked deliberately into the specter's eyes, then knelt, dropped her hands to her sides, and tilted her head back, baring her heart and throat in an ages-old gesture of surrender. She cleared her throat and spoke in the precise formal language of their people.  
  
"My name is Talisantia T'Sarran Rancourt, outcast daughter of the former House T'Sarran, which was forsaken and destroyed by Lolth and stricken from the records of Menzoberranzan seven hundred years ago." She looked up at him again and smiled. "And as for why you -" She shrugged. "I felt you here. I've heard your story. I think you've been here long enough, and you deserve to be set free."  
  
Zaknafein stretched his arm, as if to take Tali by the hand, then paused again. "And if I say yes, what will happen to me? I'd rather spend forever here than have to go back, or live that life again."  
  
It was Tali that bridged the distance between them, reaching up to take his hand, insubstantial though it was. "No. I couldn't do that even if it was what you wanted. All I can do is break the tie that holds you here, and let you go on to what waits for you on the other side. It will hurt, and for that I'm sorry, but it will leave you free to move on." She smiled warmly. "You're not an evil man, Zak. You're a good man who lived in evil times."  
  
He stared curiously and silently at Tali for a moment before speaking. "I'm still not certain I understand, but I believe you." He bowed his head, then looked up again and nodded. "Very well, daughter of T'Sarran. Work your magics and set me free."  
  
Tali nodded and smiled softly. "Thank you, Zak. This is -" She paused a beat to find the words. "Important to me." She sat down on the stone again, then reached out with her senses. "What's left of you, physically, it's below us now?"  
  
Zaknafein folded his arms across his chest and nodded. "Bones. Nothing but bones, but it's there."  
  
Silently, Tali nodded again, then probed the depths below her. Her hands shook with the effort of concentration, but she remained still aside from the tremor. Several long minutes passed in excruciating silence, then just as Zaknafein had begun to wonder what was wrong with her, the surface of the lake rippled. A skeleton of elven build, stripped bare of flesh and clothing, rose from the acid, floating just above the surface, then drifted over and settled to the stone beside Tali.  
  
She took a deep, shaky breath, then released Zaknafein's hand, and turned to face the skeleton. Her fingertips brushed its forehead with unusual fondness, then came to rest on its breastbone, uncurling until her palm laid flat.  
  
A wind that couldn't possibly exist underground stirred her hair and rippled the surface of the lake as she began to murmur ancient, arcane phrases. A glimmer of violet light sparked into being, then spread to surround her in a swirling aura. The misty apparition of Zaknafein was drawn down into the weathered bones, which began to knit flesh and organs under the influence of the spell.  
  
As his lungs formed and he drew his first breath in seven hundred years, a tormented yowl of pain escaped the warrior's throat. Slowly, excruciatingly, his body re-formed around him. "No!" he gasped. "No, you said I wouldn't have to live again!"  
  
Tali closed her eyes, this time fighting the sting of tears instead of the sting of the acid. "You won't, Zak. I promised you, and you won't. You're dying already. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, but this was the only way." She slid her arms under his and pulled the dying dark elf into her lap, then began to smooth his long, white hair back from his forehead with one hand as he fought the inevitable.  
  
"I'm going to go, then?" Zaknafein wheezed. "It's over. It's finally over." He struggled to focus rapidly blurring mortal eyes upon his savior just once before death claimed him. He smiled, wryly and wracked with the agony of his dying body. "..and this is the first time in all my years that I've ever found a Drow woman beautiful."  
  
Tali touched a finger to his lips softly. "Shh. Rest now. It's over. It's all over. And no one will ever hurt you again." She leaned down and touched her lips to the center of his forehead, her tears spilling to sparkle on his dark skin as he drew his last breath with a shudder, and the light left his eyes. "Forgive me for the pain - and may your reward be as beautiful as you are. Sleep in peace, master of blades."  
  
She knelt, reverently, over the still form for several minutes, then whispered a final spell, and the remains were consumed and turned to ash in a flash of green light. She swept the ashes into her hands, then rose to her feet and held her hands out before her. Another impossible wind swept over the lake, lifting the ashes from her hands and scattering them far across its surface.  
  
Whether it was a minute or an hour that she stood there silently weeping, she didn't know. Eventually, however, she walked back the way she had come, pausing at the edge of the lake to cast one last glance over its expanse. "For you, my starlight," she murmured. "For you, he's finally free." She turned, then, and walked silently away into the Underdark. 


End file.
